Four years after the fatal “Rust” shooting, gun supplier Seth Kenney sues Alec Baldwin and the film’s producers, claiming he was wrongfully blamed and blacklisted from Hollywood amid a media smear campaign.

The long shadow of the “Rust” tragedy has deepened as Seth Kenney, owner of PDQ Arm & Prop, filed a 35-page lawsuit against Alec Baldwin and several others involved in the ill-fated film’s production. The move marks Kenney’s effort to reclaim his reputation nearly four years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ death on October 21, 2021.

Kenney, who supplied the prop firearms and dummy ammunition including the Colt .45 revolver Baldwin was holding when the fatal shot was fired contends that he has been unfairly vilified and rendered unemployable in Hollywood. He describes himself as a “scapegoat” in a “devastating national propaganda campaign,” allegedly orchestrated by Baldwin, “cutthroat industry fixers,” and sections of the media to deflect blame. His filing claims “personal humiliation, mental anguish, and ruinous financial losses.”

The Lawsuit: Clearing His Name

Kenney’s lawsuit names Baldwin, the Rust Movie Productions entity, armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, and other producers and crew members as defendants. He asserts that the film’s management cut corners on safety, accusing Baldwin of failing to participate in a firearm inspection before the fatal rehearsal.

Kenney maintains that he is not responsible for any live ammunition, insisting that every dummy round he supplied was “rattle tested” shaken to confirm it contained no powder. “Hannah started this deadly snowball,” Kenney alleges, “then the rest of them did everything they weren’t supposed to do.”

A Legal Web Deepens

Kenney’s lawsuit comes amid an ongoing tangle of legal battles stemming from the Rust shooting:

• Armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 14 months for loading a live round into Baldwin’s gun.

• Baldwin’s own criminal trial was dismissed earlier this year after a judge ruled that prosecutors had withheld evidence.

• Investigators have yet to establish how live bullets entered the set, leaving the origin of the ammunition a matter of fierce dispute.

Kenney says he was pushed to act after Baldwin’s January 2025 lawsuit against New Mexico prosecutors suggested Kenney may have inadvertently mixed live and dummy rounds, and accused investigators of shielding him from scrutiny due to professional familiarity. Kenney described that accusation as the “last straw.”

Conflicting Accounts and Missing Links

At the heart of the controversy is the question of where the live rounds originated. Evidence from Gutierrez Reed’s trial indicated she brought contaminated dummy rounds from a previous project, “The Old Way,” starring Nicolas Cage. Kenney’s suit asserts that Gutierrez Reed’s ammunition stock “had been mixed with live .45 Colt rounds” she used recreationally while working on that production.

However, Gutierrez Reed previously claimed in a 2021 police interview that she received dummy rounds for “The Old Way” from Kenney, and even filed and later dropped a 2022 lawsuit against him.

Kenney’s own statements have evolved over time. He initially admitted in 2021 that he might have supplied a box of dummy rounds labeled “JS”, found on the Rust set, but later testified that it actually came from Thell Reed, Hannah’s father and a veteran armorer. Kenney says his revised recollection simply reflects a delayed memory correction, not deception.

Defamation, Fixers, and Fallout

Beyond the immediate tragedy, Kenney’s suit accuses the Rust production team of colluding with YouTube commentators and online trolls to damage his reputation. He claims he has been “blacklisted” from Hollywood, losing all business ties and industry trust since 2021.

Despite his professional isolation, Kenney says he remains determined to use the discovery process to expose what he calls Baldwin’s “media manipulation and legal intimidation tactics.”

Baldwin’s attorneys have declined to comment on the new filing.

Ongoing Legal Storm

Parallel cases continue to unfold:

• Baldwin’s revived lawsuit accuses the state of withholding matching bullet evidence, which he says undermines the original prosecution theory.

• New Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office has filed motions to dismiss that suit under prosecutorial immunity.

• Halyna Hutchins’ family, including her mother and sister, still have a pending civil suit against Baldwin and others; Baldwin is scheduled to be deposed via Zoom on November 12.

• Separately, Kenney has filed a civil rights suit against the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, alleging that investigators lied to obtain a search warrant for his business and have refused to return his gun, which remains in evidence.

Kenney insists that “Rust” producers never even paid him for the weapon’s rental — a final insult in a saga that has devastated lives, careers, and reputations across the industry. As the court battles intensify, the tragedy that began as an avoidable on-set accident continues to reverberate through Hollywood, raising enduring questions about accountability, negligence, and truth in the film industry.